Free An Owl's Whisper by Michael J. Smith

her hair. “But remember, when it comes to misbehavior, the Boche wrote the book.”
    “You must have studied with them, LaCroix,” Isabelle stuck out her tongue at Clarisse.
    Clarisse jumped to her feet and struck a belligerent pose, but the girls’ attention was drawn elsewhere. Eva stepped into the center of the circle and switched on a flashlight pointing up from the tip of her chin. The shadows it cast on her face and her bushy moustache, made by holding a black comb under her nose, were eerie. “Good evening, comrades. I am Josef Stalin,” Eva said with a Russian accent. “Allow me to offer a hypothesis for your observations. Observations my spies would have made if they weren’t all IDIOTS.” Eva looked away from the circle and called, “Beria, have all my spies shot. While you’re at it, shoot yourself, too!”
    The girls were laughing as Eva turned her shadowy face back to them, her eyes wide and darting from girl to girl and her Russian accent even heavier than before. “It’s oh so clear. Unbowed Britain still rules waves and clouds in the west.” Eva made her eyebrows jump. “The German beast’s appetite is insatiable. So Hitler turns his hungry eyes elsewhere. Eeek! From Berlin, my socialist union must look tempting as a big bowl of borscht with sour cream.”
    Camille raised her hand. “Sorry to interrupt, comrade.”
    “Nobody interrupts me,” Eva said. She pointed to Cami. “Have her shot!”
    “Just one question before I die, comrade,” Cami giggled. “I thought Hitler was your dear friend. Is there no honor among you despots these days?”
    “Us, friends? Just because we dined together on Polish sausage? I never trust a man who won’t drink vodka with me.”
    Cami said, “Is there anyone you do trust, comrade?”
    “Didn’t I have you shot?” Eva laughed. “Anyway, the trains, the trucks, the troops, moved in secret under the cover of darkness—it proves my case. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a sleeping bear to rouse.” She switched off her light.
    When the laughter had died down, Isabelle from Paris said, “But really, it’s all so silly. Germany and the Soviets are allies, and Hitler can’t fight England and Russia at once.”
    Operation Barbarossa, Hitler’s siccing of an army of 3.6 million on the unprepared USSR in June 1941, marked an explosive upturn in the war in the east. Changes that summer in the war’s impact on western Europe were more evolutionary. By September, not only was the evening’s light fading earlier at St. Sébastien, so too was food becoming increasingly scarce.
    The district’s farmers had always been generous, but now their livestock and crops were inventoried and distribution of their produce was restricted. They still did what they could for Mother Catherine, but it wasn’t much. And with the town of Lefebvre starving, it had nothing to share with St. Sébastien.
    Toward the end of summer 1941, Eva’s trips to visit her uncle became less frequent, for he was away from Liege much of the time. When Henri was home and wanted to see her, Pruvot was sent to the convent to fetch her. After those visits, Eva returned with provisions for the kitchen of St. Sébastien, but there seemed to be less each time.
    Less from the local sources. Less from Uncle Henri. Finally, in late September came the third blow. Early one afternoon, a detail of three German soldiers arrived at the convent unannounced. A sourfaced corporal rang the bell. When Sister Martine answered, he held out a document, official-looking and written in German, and demanded in a distant cousin of French, “I am Corporal Schweinslauter. Make present the lands-master.”
    Sister could not read the document and she interpreted landsmaster to mean the mayor of Lefebvre. With pointing and pantomime, she indicated the way to the village.
    The soldier was first confused, then exasperated. He lapsed into German. “ Nein, nein. Wo ist irher Bauer? ” Then in French. “Your farmer.